SONAR4 Producer Academic Edition

This edition of SONAR delivers powerful production tools in a fast, streamlined user interface. With SONAR 4, Cakewalk has added powerful new recording, editing, comping and navigation tools that optimize workflow for today's professional. In addition, version 4 combines innovative surround and AV capabilities along with precise engineering tools.

SONAR 4 Producer Edition is the perfect solution for composing, recording, editing, mixing, and remixing music productions; and for providing voice over, score, sound design and post audio for film, TV, video, commercials, and games.

Producer Edition exclusives

SONAR 4 Producer Edition has the following exclusive features for professional digital audio engineering: comprehensive surround mixing and editing, Lexicon Pantheon Surround Reverb, Sonitus Surround Compressor, Sonitus:fx Suite, enhanced mixing console with assignable fx controls and per-channel EQ, Video Thumbnail track, POW-r Dithering, and MPEX Time Scaling.

Surround and AV Capabilities

Engineered to meet the needs of mixing professionals, SONAR 4 Producer Edition provides a complete surround mixing and editing environment with support for over 30 configurations, including 5.1, 7.1, LCRS.

The Surround Panner is the nexus of version 4's surround mixing paradigm offering control that extends far beyond a simple x/y axis. The Surround Panner utilizes focus, width, angle, and front/rear balance controls. Speaker muting and soloing, LFE send, and extensive control surface/Joystick support further accentuate the flexibility of the SONAR 4 surround implementation. Any surround bus can be routed to another surround bus to achieve dynamic mixing configurations. In addition, SONAR 4 offers transparent down-mixing and bass management.

SurroundBridge - allows for the use of any stereo plug-in within multi-channel environments. SurroundBridge seamlessly creates multiple instances of any effect, providing complete linked/unlinked control across all channels from a single UI.

Video Thumbnail Track - align audio with on-screen action; quickly locate video scenes across an entire project; thumbnails resize dynamically to project zoom; auto-snap to frame.

Lexicon Pantheon Surround Reverb - access the world-class, pristine sound of Lexicon reverb for the first time ever in multi-channel environments up to 7.1; simple and powerful interface, indispensable tool; numerous factory presets and full editing capabilities for creating custom presets.

Sonitus Surround Compressor - a nine-channel version of the critically acclaimed Sonitus Compressor, specifically designed for surround applications; flexible and totally automatable.

Surround and AV Delivery - Complementing SONAR 4's extensive surround mixing and editing capabilities are a powerful array of delivery options that include: Windows Media Audio 9 (WMA), WMA9 Pro 5.1, and WMA9 lossless encoding and decoding; QuickTime, Windows Media Video (with 5.1 surround audio), AVI (with stereo or 5.1 surround sound); open support for external command-line encoders (surround, LAME, Ogg Vorbis, Monkey's Audio, etc.). SONAR 4 also provides a convenient export video option with control over quality settings and codecs; powerful presets for frequently-used export settings; export buses and tracks into a composite mixdown, or as individual files.

Precise Engineering Technologies

POW-r Dithering - provides digital-audio bit reduction; reduces 20, 24, and 32 bit audio to CD standard 16-bit format, while retaining perceived dynamic efficiency with very low noise; scalable for use with all sample rates.

Prosoniq MPEX time scaling - a time scaling algorithm that employs psychoacoustic properties which simulate attributes of human audio perception. This 'intelligent' algorithm yields a more fluid feel and flexibility in the sound representation that makes for better Time Scaling. Great for matching audio to video or for loop/sample authoring.

TTS-1 DXi multitimbral GM2 synthesizer - a multitimbral, multi-out GM2 (General MIDI System Level 2 compatible) DXi synthesizer that is equipped with a genuine Roland synth engine; 256 instrument sounds and 9 drum sets are included; dedicated control panel for easy customization of sounds.

Professional Content - SONAR 4 Producer Edition also includes an extensive assortment of content from leading sample and loop developer SmartLoops. Included are hundreds of megabytes of MIDI Groove and ACID-Groove Clips, Live Studio Drums CWB files, Session Drummer files and Pro Drum Works loops.

Powerful recording, editing, composing, mixing, remixing, and navigation tools in a fast, streamlined user interface make you more productive than ever before. With unlimited track support, a smart filing scheme and workgroup features, easy loop construction, and more options for manipulating audio, SONAR makes audio intuitive and easy.

The new Track Folders feature makes it easy to efficiently manage large scale projects and loop recorded takes. You can place multiple tracks in a folder and make simultaneous adjustments and perform functions on all the tracks in a folder as though it was a single track. Tracks within a folder are displayed as a Composite Clip which you can cut-copy-paste, move, slip edit, and split; import multi-channel audio into a track folders. SONAR 4's Track Folders are ideal for managing multi-mic or grouped recordings (drums, choir, piano, orchestra, acoustic guitar).

SONAR's new comp editing enhancements makes multi-take, composite tracking of both audio and MIDI faster than ever. Recorded and edited takes are displayed in multiple layers of a single track and you can audition only the selected content in a project while comping parts by quickly muting or isolating unwanted/wanted takes or sections. You can also blend elements together using the auto-crop tool with crossfade option or the non-destructive Auto Punch Record Mode.

Version 4 extends SONAR's loop editing and composition capabilities with slice-based envelope control of gain, pitch, pan; slice preview & auto-loop simplifies marker placement/adjustments.

Freeze is a new feature that will help you optimize your system resources and allow you to do lots more with your music. You can use SONAR 4's freeze implementation for tracks, effects, and synths. It releases memory and CPU load back to your system for use on other tasks, but retains frozen data so you can unfreeze later and continue working. Freeze only works when data is present, and you can use Freeze to render tracks in one easy step, automatically unload plug-ins, and for quick toggling/auditioning of tracks. You can even move and edit frozen data or convert frozen data into groove clips.

The Simultaneous Clip Editing mode lets you perform the following edits on multiple clips simultaneously: nudge, roll out groove clips, slip edit, and add/edit fades.

Nudge is a clip editing enhancement you can use both vertically and horizontally within Track and Piano Roll views. Nudge resolution is extremely flexible (musical time, seconds, milliseconds, frames, samples, ticks, follow snap settings) and a total of 9 nudge commands can be assigned to any key or MIDI event.